Brain Freeze

Instant

Target player mills three cards. (They put the top three cards of their library into their graveyard.)

Storm (When you cast this spell, for each spell cast before this one, copy this. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (46)

sylvannos on Hoax Storm v2

2 months ago

@FireMind42: Yeah in that case, you'll want to go for Underworld Breach or Paradoxical Outcome (or something weird with both). I'd lean more towards Paradoxical Outcome because it lends itself better to straight U/R Storm. Not to mention, it opens up Displacer Kitten + Coveted Jewel shenanigans. Then you won't have to rely on rituals so much (Desperate Ritual, Goblin Electromancer, and Seething Song are especially awkward). You can then fit more artifact mana and draw spells.

You'll still want Bolas's Citadel because you're never going to actually spend black mana to cast it and the card is just the nuts in Storm. Memory Jar is always fun with Hullbreacher and Narset, Parter of Veils, but Bolas's Citadel is like Yawgmoth's Will and Yawgmoth's Bargain in one card that can be Tinker'd for (especially with Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, and Ponder). You'll still need Sphinx of the Steel Wind in your sideboard, which is another card you're never going to actually cast.

Since you don't want Monastery Mentor, you'll have to get by with Laelia, the Blade Reforged. Sometimes you'll want to Grapeshot. Sometimes you'll want to Brain Freeze. Sometimes you'll want to Empty the Warrens. Other times, you need something that can get big quick and an easy way to do that is Laelia, the Blade Reforged, Treasure Cruise, and Dig Through Time. She's mostly for Underworld Breach, but I'm not sure you'll need that with Paradoxical Outcome.

I also don't know how I forgot to mention Mind's Desire in my original post. That's the reason to play pure U/R Storm in Vintage LOL. Personal Tutor may also have a potential spot somewhere in this list. It grabs Tinker, Grapeshot, Time Walk, Mind's Desire, and draw 7s. I'd even consider it over the second copies of Past in Flames and Grapeshot.

sylvannos on Hoax Storm v2

3 months ago

To start with, there's a few cards that have better Vintage equivalents. Overmaster and Spell Pierce should be the 3rd. and 4th. copies of Force of Will. Leftover space from cutting those can be Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, or Flusterstorm. You don't need Faithless Looting because we have Paradoxical Outcome, Sensei's Divining Top, Gush, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Brainstorm to choose from. Merchant Scroll also belongs in here, because you can use it to grab Ancestral Recall at the very least. Usually you want it to make sure you have protection in hand by grabbing countermagic.

Library of Alexandria isn't good in this deck. And you're not the type that needs 8x {UR} sources, so Steam Vents can go, along with a few copies of Volcanic Island (1 or 2). Replace all of these with four copies of Scalding Tarn and basic lands. Or even just play 6x fetches. You need to be able to shuffle after using Brainstorm, Ponder,and Sensei's Divining Top.

From here, you have a solid U/R Storm shell. However, I wouldn't play straight "Modern U/R Storm, but Power 9" dot dec. 2 mana is a lot for Goblin Electromancer, there are easier ways of winning than Grapeshot, and so on. The question then becomes "Where to go from here?"

• Paradoxical Outcome is just the nuts. By bouncing moxen and cheap artifacts, it's a ritual (since you can replay everything for {0}, untapping it all) and it's a draw spell. However, Paradoxical Outcome requires Mox Opals, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond, etc. so you'll have to cut rituals (likely Seething Song). The upside is you get an extremely powerful engine that can often end the game with a single Paradoxical Outcome.
• Thassa's Oracle is the new hotness for Vintage combo cards. You can win the game by casting Brain Freeze on yourself, then casting Thassa's Oracle. It also opens up more combos using Demonic Consultation and Doomsday. Sometimes you've just drawn a bunch of cards and have ~3 cards left in your deck.
• Tinker is too good in Storm not to play it. You're either getting Memory Jar, Bolas's Citadel, Time Vault (Voltaic Key is already good in Storm when combined with Mana Vault and friends), or a random wincon like Sphinx of the Steel Wind boarded in for game 2. Bolas's Citadel will essentially flip the top half of your deck into play.
• You can also play draw 7s (Wheel of Fortune, Timetwister, Memory Jar, Diminishing Returns) in combination with Narset, Parter of Veils and Hullbreacher.
• Mana Drain is good, but you may find it too slow if you make any of the above changes. It definitely does more work in a more control-oriented Storm deck with Narset, Parter of Veils, Dack Fayden, Grim Tutor, etc.
• Lastly, there's the question of Underworld Breach, Yawgmoth's Will, Monastery Mentor, or some combination of these. Underworld Breach will mean you can stay in two colors. Playing black for Yawgmoth's Will allows you to play Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Necropotence, Doomsday, Tendrils of Agony, and hardcasting Bolas's Citadel. Monastery Mentor both scales up and goes sideways. A single token is enough to kill someone combined with Paradoxical Outcome or a draw 7. Monastery Mentor is like casting Tarmogoyf and Empty the Warrens for three mana and one card.

Hope this helps! Welcome to MtG's oldest and greatest format.

Delphen7 on The Technomancer 【Trazyn, the Infinite CEDH】

5 months ago

zAzen7977 Glad you like it :D

In my testing thus far, barring interaction, it usually plays Trazyn t2-t3 and wins the following turn.

• Between the lines being somewhat unintuitive and being able to win on top of interaction, the deck is hard to interrupt.

In general

• Interaction before we're set up hurts, but there are so many ramp effects we can usually pay command tax once or twice before getting truly stuck.
• Counterspells/removal on nonTrazyn cards usually don't matter as it just sets us up better to combo (ie an opponent counters a Mana Vault while we're sitting on a Pili-Pala kind of thing).

That said:

Counterspells

• These are pretty bad if they're aimed at Trazyn, but between discard, spells that draw counters (like Oppo Agent) and a lack of knowledge about his power, I usually see them deployed on the wrong cards.
• I play online (and thus against random people), but if you wanted to run this in a dedicated pod, more hand check would probably be good over Rocket Launcher and a couple other duplicate combo pieces to help clear the way for Trazyn once others know what's up.

Stax

• Stax is an interesting matchup. They can usually shut us out of comboing pretty quickly, but Trazyn is a 4/6 deathtouch, and the deck runs many big critters, so I can usually beat them to death and immediately win at instant speed.
• If anyone ever kills the stax pieces stopping us Trazyn can combo over anything opponents could do given we have Farmstead Gleaner or Pili-Pala. Even if we don't it's unlikely anyone has multiple piece of removal after removing stax pieces.
• It is worth noting that Drannith Magistrate and Collector Ouphe completely shut us down, but other common pieces are blank cardboard (like Grafdigger's Cage).

Removal

• As it's CEDH you don't really see much removal, but Patchwork Gnomes, Welding Jar and multiple haste effects mitigate what little there is
• If he is removed, it's usually pretty easy to recast Trazyn given how many ramp cards in the deck.

Turbo

• This is probably the worst matchup. If an opponent goes off before Trazyn is set up, there's nothing we can do about it. I usually hope that another opponent has interaction.
• Amusingly, Brain Freeze wins us the game if Trazyn is on the field, but Thoracle lines usually end poorly.
• When using discard to fish out counterspells, I try to target blue black players over other blue players to try and mitigate the risk of dying to Thoracle/Consultation if casting Trazyn goes poorly.

I think of the couple dozen games I've played thus far, my only losses were to a t2 Thoracle/Consultation, Gitrog with Collector Ouphe on the battlefield, a Chisei, Heart of Oceans playing way too many counterspells, and a wild game where no one drew anything until t30ish.

The best comparison for this deck is probably Turbo K'rrik. On average this list is slightly slower than K'rrik, but more resilient and less familiar, which gives us a slightly better game against interactive decks.

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This was a lot, but I hope it answers your question!

Galveystune on A PROPER VAMPIRE DECK

6 months ago

Thinking about putting in Bolas's Citadel and Brain Freeze

Gidgetimer on Isochron scepter + Brain Freeze …

6 months ago

Activating Isochron Scepter allows you to cast the exiled card. So you will get 1,000 copies of Brain Freeze.

Babbacchio on Isochron scepter + Brain Freeze …

6 months ago

So we have in play a Isochron Scepter and the artifact came in play discarding a Dramatic Reversal , imprinting it. What if we play the Scepter a thousand of times, and then we cast a Brain Freeze ? Does it work for milling the opponent's deck ? Thanks

Massacar on The Izzet Spell-Slinging Machine Gun

7 months ago

Aetherflux Reservoir or Brain Freeze/Grapeshot could beef up your wincons if you're interested since you describe your deck as a storm based deck.

Gidgetimer on Naru meha + Blur + …

7 months ago

Links are achieved by using double brackets instead of single.

Naru Meha, Master Wizard

Blur

Brain Freeze

There are a few problems with your scenario. If Naru Meha, Master Wizard is already in play and you cast Blur on it The blur will not be a valid target for her ETB because it will no longer be a spell on the stack when the trigger goes on the stack.

If instead you have cast Blur targeting a different creature and then flash Naru Meha, Master Wizard in, you will be able to do the loop you are wanting in order to draw your library.

Copying a spell is not casting the spell. Storm only triggers for each spell cast before it this turn and doesn't care about copies made. You will not be able to mill your opponents out in the manner you are wanting.